Morsing Around
by PollyVictorian
Summary: January 11th is Learn Your Name in Morse Code Day. Here's how that panned out on the Sherman Ranch. With thanks to Janet for her lists of Holidays and Observances.


Note: As Slim explains in the story, Morse code letters are normally separated by a space the length of three dots. However, for reasons only comprehensible to someone far more techno-savvy than myself, the site formatting will not allow any spacing between the Morse letters. I have worked around the glitch by putting a / between the letters.

* * *

MORSING AROUND

Slim Sherman paused the buckboard beside the corral as Jess Harper reined the newly-broken colt to a halt and slid to the ground.  
"That the last of them, Jess?" he asked.  
"Yeah," his partner answered. "You can let Major Harvey know his horses are ready. The army sure is getting some good mounts in this bunch."  
"They always get good mounts from the Sherman Ranch!" said Slim. "I'll wire Major Harvey as soon as I get to town."  
"You going into Laramie?" asked Jess.  
"Yes, Daisy's given me a long grocery list."  
"You sure hustle whenever Daisy needs some groceries. When I was cooking, I had to push and shove to get you to fetch a packet of yeast and the Laramie Gazette. And then you took your time over it!"  
"I suppose you'd argue if I said Daisy's cooking was more worth hustling for than yours," Slim said in an almost innocent voice. Jess grinned.  
"No, pard, I can't argue on that score. You gonna pick Mike up from school?" he added.  
"Yes, leaving now I should get there just about in time." Slim shook the reins and the buckboard team started moving. "Don't forget that barn door needs mending, Jess. Oh, and the pump handle is working loose; better take a look at it."  
"Don't you forget anything on Daisy's list," Jess called after him. "All those chores, I'll be working up an appetite!"

Waiting in line in the Laramie telegraph office Slim thought, not for the first time, what a difference Jess had made to the Sherman Ranch. Once, a contract from the army would have been a mixed blessing: the money would have been welcome but Slim would have worked himself to exhaustion to get the horses broken and ready, worrying the whole time that he wouldn't make it. Now, they could and did take on large orders from the army and elsewhere, and the ranch's reputation grew with every delivery of top quality horseflesh. Mike would be helping out in a few years, too. Not Andy – that was Slim's only wistful thought. He accepted now that Andy wouldn't be a rancher by choice and Slim had more sense than to try to push him. Pushing a child would only make a rebel out of him. In his last letter, Andy had talked about studying to be a vet; maybe he'd come back to Wyoming some day, doing work he loved. Meanwhile, it gave Slim a good feeling to know that Mike's ambition was to work the ranch with him and Jess – "take care of them in their old age" was how the little rascal put it.

He came out of his reverie as he reached the counter and handed the written message to Caleb Meade.  
"That'll be two bits, Slim. I'll send it off right away. You expecting a reply?"  
"Yes. Major Harvey usually answers right away, if he's at the fort. I'll call in before I leave town, see if anything's come back."

A beer in Windy's Saloon passed the time until school let out; Slim was waiting at the school gate and waved as Mike came running out of the school house with the other kids.  
"Hey, Slim!"  
"Hey, Tiger!" Slim ruffled the boy's hair. "Good day at school?"  
"Aww, why do grown-ups always ask that?" Mike queried  
"Because we hope one day you'll say yes," Slim answered with a grin. "C'mon, we have to do some shopping for Aunt Daisy before we go home."

The two walked up the main street of Laramie to the general store.

"Afternoon, Mrs Delver." Slim touched his hat to the proprietor's wife.  
"Good afternoon, Slim. How is everyone at the ranch? Well, I can see you and Mike are fine, at any rate."  
"So are Daisy and Jess, thank you, ma'am. I've got quite a list here of things Daisy wants. Some of them sound a little strange – she's been reading a fancy recipe book her sister sent her."  
"What sort of things?" asked Mrs Delver.  
"Well, like this," Slim pointed to an item on the list. "I've never heard of it. Don't worry if you don't have any," he added.  
"Coriander? Of course we have coriander!" said Mrs Delver. "It's not strange at all. You're just not used to fine cookery. You've been a bachelor too long," she told him in a disapproving tone. "Leave this to me. Go amuse yourselves for a few minutes." She bustled off with the grocery list.

"All ready, Slim," Mrs Delver called five minutes later. "Even the coriander. And a bag of candy for Master Williams."  
"That wasn't on the list," said Slim.  
"And it's not on the bill, either," Mrs Delver told him.  
"Gee, thanks, Mrs Delver." Mike gave her one of his broad smiles that almost made it to a laugh.  
"You're welcome, Mike. You can let Slim have a piece, provided he promises to learn what coriander is."

"Mrs Delver sure is nice, isn't she, Slim?" said Mike as they stacked the parcels in the buckboard.  
"She is. She's a very kind-hearted lady," said Slim.  
"You know what the best thing is? That she knows me."  
"That she knows you? Why is that so special?"  
"Because I've been here long enough for her to get to know me. That's the good thing about staying in one place - you know people and they know you, instead of moving on all the time and only ever meeting strangers."  
"Well, it's good to have old friends and to meet new people, both," was all Slim said but Mike's words touched him. When the young orphan had first come to the Sherman Ranch, Slim had been surprised at how quickly he settled, considering that he had lost both his parents, the only family he had, and in such a sudden and appalling way. But no doubt the fact of having a permanent, steady home had been a big part of it. At the Sherman Ranch, for the first time in his life, Mike Williams had been able to put down roots.

"Are we going home now, Slim?"  
"I have to stop at the telegraph office to see if there's been an answer to a wire I sent. Come on, we'll see if Major Harvey still wants to pay us for those horses."

As Slim and Mike entered the telegraph office, the machine started clicking.  
"Be with you in a minute, Slim." Caleb tapped out the ready signal and started taking down the message that was coming over the wires. Slim put a finger to his mouth, warning Mike to keep quiet while Caleb was listening to the signals.  
"Good timing, Slim," said Caleb as he stood up and brought the written out message over to the counter. "It's your reply from Major Harvey."  
"Thanks, Caleb. See you later." Slim put the piece of paper in his pocket and he and Mike walked out to the buckboard.  
"Aren't you going to read it, Slim?" asked Mike.  
"No need, Mike, I heard the message as it came in," said Slim.  
"Golly, you can understand telegraph code?"  
"Yes, I learned Morse code when I worked in the telegraph office for a while, years ago. It comes in handy now and then."  
"Will you teach me, Slim?"  
"Sure, Mike. It's something you don't learn in school, I suppose."  
"Even on a good day," said Mike.

—- / · — / · _ · · / · — / — — / · / · ·

"Daisy, that was wonderful," said Jess as he finished his third piece of pie. "Every meal you cook is the best I've ever tasted."  
"It certainly was delicious," agreed Slim. "Coriander makes a much better food flavoring than the Laramie Gazette."  
Jess looked at him suspiciously.  
"You sure about that?"

Mike piped up.  
"Slim, you promised to teach me Morse code."  
"So I did."  
"Homework first, Mike," came the gentle but firm reminder from Daisy.  
"You get your homework done while I write out the code for you, then you can practice it," Slim offered the compromise.  
"Alright." Mike fetched his school books and slate. While Daisy cleared the supper table and washed the dishes, with Jess a willing helper, Slim seated himself at his desk and started writing.

"Finished!" Mike declared in the mixture of relief and triumph that completed homework brings. "Have you got the code written out, Slim?"  
"Yes, here it is." Slim brought the sheet of paper covered with letters, dashes and dots over to the table. Jess leaned over to look at it.  
"Where did you learn Morse code, Slim?" he asked his partner.  
"It was just after the war, when the telegraph office first opened in Laramie. I worked there two days a week, to spell the regular operator. Money was pretty tight back then - it was before we got the stage stop contract - and bringing in some regular pay helped."

Mike was poring over the columns of letters and signs.  
"What should I learn first, Slim?"  
"Well, how about your name? Find M, I, K, E and write it out on your slate."  
Mike set to work then paused, his slate pencil in mid-air.  
"How do you tell when one letter stops and the next one starts?"  
"You have to leave the right amount of space in between them. On the telegraph, you leave a silence. See, the dash is as long as three dots. You leave a space, or a silence, three dots long between each letter and seven dots long between each word."

"How do you remember it all?" Jess was shaking his head in amazement.  
"Oh, really it's just another way of reading," said Slim. "You get to recognize the letters and words when you hear them, just like you recognize them when you see them written on paper."  
"Yeah, well, I guess if you were listening to the dit-dit-dah all day long in the telegraph office, it would get to be as ordinary as reading after a while."

"How you doing there, Mike?" Slim leaned over to see what Mike had got written. The boy pushed the slate towards him.

— — / · · / — · — / ·

"Did I get it right?"  
"Yes, that's a perfect Mike."  
"Here, let me try," said Jess. "Three spaces between the letters, you said?"  
"Your name is easier than mine, Jess. You've got the same letter twice," said Mike.  
"Well?" Jess held up the slate.

— · — · / · / · · · / · · ·

"That's Jess, alright," said Slim.  
"Write your name, Slim," said Mike.  
"You write it for me. You're the one learning, remember?"

Mike bent over the slate again and produced

· · · / —- / · · / — —

"Well done. Now, how about Daisy?"  
"Yes, Mike, let me see how I look in Morse code."  
"Your name is longest of all, Aunt Daisy. Five letters." He scratched at the slate for a minute then showed her

— · · / · — / · · / · · · / · · _ · ·

"You're getting the hang of it, Mike," said Slim approvingly. "Those letters are neatly spaced - that's important to make the message easy to read."  
"I'm going to keep practicing," Mike declared. "I want to learn everone's name."

The young boy's head stayed bent over the sheet of paper and the slate pencil was kept busy until Daisy's order:  
"Bedtime, Mike!"  
"Aww, Aunt Daisy, do I have to?"  
"Yes, you have to. It's school tomorrow. Come along."  
"Alright. G'night Slim, g'night Jess." Mike was shepherded out of the room by an unrelenting Daisy.

"Does that boy ever go to bed without fighting?" asked Jess.  
"Did you when you were his age?" countered Slim.  
"No, I guess not. You?"  
"Maybe at Christmas." The partners grinned at one another.

The grown-ups' bedtime wasn't all that far behind the child's after the long day of ranch work. Daisy busied herself with the sweater she was knitting for Mike while Slim and Jess played checkers but after Jess beat him three games in a row, Slim declared himself ready for bed. Jess went to the kitchen to bank down the stove for the night while Daisy took a final look in at Mike. Slim put away the checker board then picked up the slate Mike had been practicing his Morse code on. The boy had been writing out all sorts of names, of places and people, and doing it well, Slim saw with a touch of pride. There was Laramie, Cheyenne, Mort, Mose, Ben … Slim stared at the final name Mike had written. He stood for a moment, then went across to the bedroom. Daisy was just coming out of the door.  
"Is he asleep?" Slim asked.  
"Sound asleep," Daisy affirmed. Slim slipped past her and went over to where Mike lay. Daisy was a wise woman and pretended not to notice as the rancher bent over the sleeping boy and gently kissed his forehead. She had gone to her own bedroom by the time Slim came out of Mike's room, quietly closing the door behind him before crossing to the table and picking up the slate to look once more at the name the little boy had written:

— — / · · / · · _ · / · · · · / · — / · / —-

· · · / · · · · / · / · _ · · / — — / · — / — ·

* * *

For reference, here is the American Morse Code alphabet, which was in use in the United States in the 1870s (now superseded by the International Morse Code).

A · — B — · · · C · · _ · D — · ·

E · F · — · G — — · H · · · ·

I · · J — · — · K — · — L —-

M — — N — · O . _ . P · · · · ·

Q · · — · R · _ · · S · · · T —

U · · — V · · · — W · — — X · — · ·

Y · · _ · · Z ···_·


End file.
